The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "beds" ...
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Money Pit/ Money Maker: Developmental Centers and the Medicaid Match
The series found that New York has kept open poorly run institutions for the developmentally disabled because it's Medicaid reimbursement rate is so lucrative. Residents are kept in locked beds in prison-like conditions though most are not convicted criminals.
Tags: disabled; institutions; developmentally disabled; locked beds; Medicaid
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OC Assemblyman In Bed With Lobbyist
When Michael Duvall, an Ex-Orange County assemblyman, described portions of his affair, he did not know it would be broadcasted for the public to hear. Duvall has been a consistent supporter for conservative issues and has long supported California families and their values. But after becoming the vice chairman of the Utilities and Commerce committee women, especially a lobbyist for the utility giant in California, began to notice him. This is how the affair started and resigning as assemblyman is how it ended.
Tags: Michael Duvall; Heidi DeJong Barsuglia; assembly district representative; conservative; Rules Committee; Republican; politician; affair; California
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Dykstra's Business a Bed of 'Nails'
Lenny Dykstra appeared to be the picture of success. He set out to build a “financial empire” based off of professional athletes and his own reputation as a former Major League Baseball star. “But an ESPN.com investigation discovered that Dykstra was a financial train wreck with a long history of skipping out on bills. Also, ESPN.com discovered that at least 24 legal actions had been filed against Dykstra over the previous two years.”
Tags: Baseball; Financial; Players; Lawsuit; Entrepreneur; Major League Baseball; MLB
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The Suicide Bed
This investigation "exposes a pattern of cover-ups, altered records, and secrecy surrounding a series of deaths inside a state-run mental hospital."
Tags: suicide; mental illness; hospitals; Anthony Gordon; hospital records
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Questionable Care
This five-part series looked into to accidental deaths in nursing homes in the province of Manitoba, which had tripled since 2000. Series installments discussed an overview of findings, problems with bed rails, staff shortages, neglect and reactions to the findings.
Tags: Canada; international journalism; Manitoba; nursing homes; senior citizens; health care; negelect; bed rails; staff shortages
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Hospital Sexual Assaults
The reporter investigated sexual assaults on patients at hospitals in the Phoenix area, and the reporting led to criminal convictions for three hospital staff members. In March 2008, the station received an e-mail saying staff at a Scottsdale hospital didn't call police after a stroke patient told them she was sexually assaulted in her bed. After the original report aired, other people came forward with similar stories. After a public records request from the police department, the reporter found sex crimes against patients at about a dozen Phoenix-area hospitals. Most cases were never solved. Ptosecutors criminally charged employees at the original Scottsdale hospital with violations of Arizona's vulnerable adults law. Three were convicted and one received jail time. Several hospitals in the Phoenix are have reviewed and improved their patient security as a result of these reports.
Tags: public records; sexual assault; hospitals; Arizona; Phoenix; patient assault; hospital patients
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Craftmatic
The Craftmatic Adjustable Bed has been sold for decades and marketed mostly to elderly consumers in their homes. The bed is expensive, sometimes sold for as much as $9,000, and those who buy it are told it could virtually save their lives. Elderly customers see the commercials which run nearly non-stop on daytime television and call an 800-number, where they are prompted to set up an in-home demonstration with a Craftmatic salesperson. They are told there is no obligation to buy, but what Inside Edition found is the salespeople rarely leave without closing the deal, and it is rarely to the benefit of the consumer.
Tags: salespeople; complaints; consumer agencies; disability; questionable sales practices; scare tactics; miracle cures; fraud;
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The Forgotten
This story is an inside look at the systematic warehousing of more than 17,000 adults and children in Serbia's mental institutions. Dateline NBC gained unprecedented access to remote, government-run facilities and found alarming and sometimes life-threatening conditions. The institutions are remnants of Serbia's communist past and symbols of a deeply ingrained prejudice against the mentally disabled and their families. Serbia's medical establishment continues to advise parents to put their mentally disabled newborns into institutions, and the government provides virtually no support for those who choose not to. In mental institutions throughout Serbia, Dateline found adults and children crammed into fetid rooms and metal cribs, their bodies emaciated, atrophied and disfigured. Some residents appeared to be children but they were actually young adults whose growth had been stunted by years of institutionalization. One of our most disturbing discoveries came while staying overnight in a dangerously overcrowded institution. There we learned that children are routinely tied to their bed railings for long periods of time - a practice that one disability rights organization says meets the legal definition of torture under international law.
Tags: mental health; Serbia; child abuse; patient abuse; patient rights; mental institutions
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Saving Babies: Exposing Sudden Infant Death in America
Hargrove, Hoffman, and Bowman reviewed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's records and found "inaccurate diagnoses of sudden infant deaths throughout America...The study found that states with multiple levels of Child Death Review boards are much more likely to detect infant homicides and accidental asphyxiations than states with little or no such review."
Tags: children; babies; death; mortality; CDC; beds; California; Florida; sleeping environments; Sudden Infant Death Syndrome;
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Doubts About Cassey
Over the course of a decade, AIDS activist Cassey Weierbach told her tragic story of contracting HIV from a man who raped her. The local people in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley helped her when she needed it, as they "held her hand when she was laid up in a hospital bed. They’ve cooked her meals and done her laundry. They’ve passed the plate for her on Sunday and paid her rent when it was overdue." But a pastor revealed her accusation that Weierbach did not have AIDS, and was deceiving everyone. Others questioned the veracity of Weierbach's story, as it also included details of a best friend, the alleged rapist's daughter and also a rape victim of the same man, shooting herself in front of Weierbach. Weierbach also claimed her father died in a famous plane crash. Both individuals were still alive and well, and quoted for the story. The Morning Call tells the story of a community and a woman who may or may not have been telling the truth about an affliction with a terrible disease. In the wake of the story, Weierbach was charged with defrauding the state of $67,000 worth of medical benefits.
Tags: AIDS; HIV; Munchausen syndrome; fake illness; fraud; medical fraud